The three new installations are designed within the scope of nuclear reactor safety research projects and have been given the names EVA(1), ASPIC(2) and MIDI(3). EVA is used to study fatigue of steels comprising the reactor coolant system in the laboratory by reproducing the conditions (pressure, temperature, irradiation, etc.) of the water in this system.Within the framework of the DENOPI project(4), the others aim to study consequences of a dewatering accident in a spent fuel pool at different scales. Thus, ASPIC aims to evaluate the effectiveness of an sprinkler system to cool a partially or totally uncovered fuel assembly, while MIDI aims to study thermohydraulic phenomena at the scale of the pool before fuel assemblies are uncovered.

These new research facilities are representative of the major conceptual, technical and organizational challenges that IRSN researchers and engineering have successfully through their joint efforts. They supplement the set of experimental platforms and devices that form an essential component of research into nuclear safety and the use of programs in partnership projects deployed at national, European and international levels.

(1) Studies the aging of steels.
(2) Assembly used to study fuel pool dewatering.
(3) Instrumented mockup used to study pool dewatering.
(4) Accidental dewatering of a pool, a post-Fukushima research project.